Bush's Burden

OK. I don’t like it.

48 hours is about 51 to many in my opinion. The President has now put our troops and our citizens at massive risk. Saddam has no incentive to not attack us. It is, in fact, his only remote hope to defeat us.

Our troops are now staring across the border at a military run by a madman. They are staring down a force that may be armed with chemical weapons. We have militarily surrendered the initiative to Saddam for 48 hours. During that time he can start the war on his terms. He can plot, plan and act in the next 48 hours. We will only stare.

He also has 48 hours in which to track down his terrorist cells around the world to order them to attack us. If we had already started and killed his communication abilities it would be much more difficult to contact them. Instead we have given 48 hours in which to organize a series of mass terror attacks. Now instead of a bunch of random attacks done spur of the moment, he has time to organize and plan and to make the attacks more effective. The risk to American citizens has just gone way, way up.

I do hope that Dubya knows what he is doing. We have hamstrung ourselves militarily for two days and have raised the risk of an effective terrorist attack here at home. He just shouldered a huge unnecessary burden. He had better hope that Providence smiles on him.

UPDATE:
Steven Den Beste has a post giving reasons for the 48 hour delay. The war games in Korea could be an important factor here. For us and the South Koreans to be in motion and deployed may be enough to keep the North Koreans from doing anything stupid.

I don't like the Tony Blair reasoning too well though. Blair knew on Sunday that this was coming; he should have gotten preliminary cabinet approval then. Then yesterday, after the news was broken that we would not be going to the UN, he could have gone directly to Parliament. It seems like we are covering for a tactical blunder on the part of our ally. That would explain the different time frames (a week, 72 hours, 48 hours) that were being thrown around yesterday.

That being said, if anyone has earned the right to ask for a slight delay, it is Tony Blair. If he needed 48 hours for political cover, we really did have an obligation to him to grant it. It still puts all Americans (and Brits, too) at a much higher risk - in the military or at home and I still don't like it. But, if Blair needs it, so be it. Our friendship is worth more than what will probably be just 48 of heartburn and unneeded worry.